Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1887-12-02
THE ..cLEyER FELLOW.
The Man Who IL Everyboly's Friend bn
His Own-A Familiar Character al
EyervwIlere Found.

The Mar Who Is Everybody's Friend but
His Own-A Familiar Character as
Every where Found.
He is an American institution. His
habitat is the country village. If you
should go cunning far him in the win
ter yon would find him in the village
store which kept the best fire. If you
went trapping for him you would set
your trap in the cracker barrel. If you
wanted to creep up and catch him in the
summer, you would find him on q salt
barrel in front OF store on the south
side OF the street if it did not rain.
Summer or winter you will find him
smoking cheap tobacco in a clay pipe,
unless it is election time, and then you
will lind him smoking cigar which
would blister tomato can.
He carries his hands in his pockets.
His trousers are worn out around the
delta. He gets his hair cut so seldom
that when it is cut there is a wide mar
gin of pallor which makes him look as
though he had had long run of fever.
Why do we call him clever fellow?
Because he never hurts anybody. He
never stirred around and got the start
OF anybody and made big trade. He
never gets Interested in politics and ar
CUES until some one wants to destroy
him off the earth. His information on
general subjects is large and compre-
hensive. He is the village and subur-
ban directory. He remembers when
the mercury went down to % once be-
fore. 1t was January 25, 1863. The
snow was four feet deep that winter,
and lay on the ground until spring.
He is authority on the genealogy of
every family in the village. He will
take out his pipe. reach around and
scratch his back, and say: "Jim
Smiths first wife was Simmons. Come
up from Solsville way; the Simmonses
that kept the tavern, and the Oldest boy
tit into the Mexican war. He hadn't
but one leg and got pension and be-
longed to the Methodist Church and
boarded mostly at old Ripper Browns,
an he peddled essences an thread an
suspcnders and he'd wart on his nose. {"
Thus he can go on for hours and give
you solid facts about every family in
the vicinity.
In the romantic realm of love he
rules as q very Cupid devoid of bow
and arrows, and clothed in suit of
blue jeans and q stale smell of tobacco.
Would You know who took Araminta
out riding, or who pulled down the
blinds at Belinda's abode, you must
consult our hero. Many and rich are
the jokes he cracks from his throne on
the Goldfish box at the store, and hot
are the bushes he evokes on the cheek
of the adolescent youth.
He is handy and willing to help
everybody only himself. Is cellar
being dug, there you may find him
with his hands in his pockets, his back
against tree, and pipe in his mouth
helping to dig q cellar. Wisely and
carefully does he expectorate every
time sllovelful OF dirt falls at his feet.
Has the merchant q cask of molasses to
roll into the cellar. Then on the long
rope way back out in the middle of the
road, you will find the clever fellow
with his hands out Of his pockets and
his pipe laid away, ready:to lower on
the long rope, and if he gets partially
asleep and the rope jerks him forward
on his nose, it will add interest to the
scene, and make the village look lively.
He is also great when horse or COW is
sick. He always has recipe for a
sick horse. He suggests salts, or soap,
or bleeding under the tongue, or alum,
or half pound of soda. You never
saw such willing fellow, and the
grayestone peddler or drummer who
owns the sick horse is so grateful thst
he wants to knock the clever fellow
through the side of the barn. He will
sit up all night with sick COW and
smoke, and the COW generally dies.
His ideas on art are more than twenty
laps ahead Of Raphael or Pidias. He
comes out strong when somebody is
having house painted. He will help
carry the ladders and mix the paints,
and then sit on the top board Of the
fence across the way and roll out a
whole treatise on the harmony of colors.
Everybody in the village calls on him
for help. He carries the paste when
the circus bills are put up. He bosses
the digging Of the hole when the Re-
publican and Democratic poles are re-
spectively pat up. He gets an ear
blown to rags and his face full Of pow
der firing the anvil on "the Fourth. "
In fact, he is indispensable everywhere
except at home.
He is not a general and sweeping
success at home His ideas on art have
not yet eliminated the straw hats and
old coats from the windows at home.
Good Judge of architecture as he is he
yet conveys his smoke out Of his house
through a six-inch stove-pipe in the
roof. A very poor prophet in his adj
vice to children, his own poor brats go
barefoot until their feet look like alli-
gator handbags. Handy to help every
body else, his own wife splits up the
woodshed door to cook his dinner, and
when he gets back to his seat OH the
salt barrel and commences in epicurian
style dissertation on chicken salad
you will see crumbs of cornbread in
his whiskers.
For this clever fellow, with all his
cleverness does not get rich. He has
too much to attend to. He has no
time. The interests of the whole vii
lage rest on him, and his personal
affairs must suffer. He is always turn
ing grindstone to sharpen some one
else's ak.
The Place to Have Fun.
There lives in Chicago comical-
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